Archive for
October 4th, 2010

Andrew Bogut will return to the Bradley Center court on Tuesday night for the first time since he suffered a season-ending injury on April 3 against Phoenix.

Bucks coach Scott Skiles said he anticipated Bogut would play in the 20-minute range as Milwaukee meets the Chicago Bulls in the pre-season opener for both teams.

“I’ll try to get him over 20 minutes for sure, maybe half the game,” Skiles said after the Bucks practice session Monday at the Cousins Center. “We’ll see how the game’s going, how he’s feeling. More than likely we won’t play him 30 minutes, that’s for sure.”

Bogut had his right hand taped but participated in the Bucks’ contact practice on Monday.

The Chicago Bulls announced today that the team has agreed to terms with center Joakim Noah on a multi-year extension. Per team policy, terms of the contract will not be disclosed.

“Joakim is such an integral member of our team and we are very pleased to have reached an agreement with him,” said Chicago Bulls General Manager Gar Forman. “His presence, both on and off of the court, is immeasurable and we look forward to him to continue to improve and develop his game.”

In his three seasons with the Bulls, Noah (6-11, 232) has played in 218 games (140 starts), and averaged 7.9 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 1.5 apg, 1.26 bpg, 24.8 mpg and shot .513 from the field and .706 from the line. Last season, he established career highs in scoring (10.7 ppg), rebounds (11.0 rpg), assists (2.1 apg), blocks (1.56 bpg) and minutes played (30.1 mpg). He also posted a career-best 28 double-doubles, and he was one of nine players in the NBA who averaged a double-double in 2009-10.

Noah has also played in 12 playoff games with the Bulls and owns postseason averages of 12.1 ppg, 13.1 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.83 bpg, 1.25 spg, 38.3 mpg, .513 from the floor and .841 from the free throw line.

The Bulls drafted Noah in the first round (ninth overall) of the 2007 NBA Draft, following a highly successful collegiate career at the University of Florida.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson received surprising news Sunday, finding out that star center Andrew Bynum might not be ready to play until December.

Bynum said a week ago he would be back in late November, yet now said the timetable might be pushed into December, the Los Angeles Times’ Mike Bresnahan reported.

“Yeah, it’s a possibility,” Bynum told the Times. “I’ve got a little bit of pain still. It just depends on when I’m cleared.”

Bynum, who had knee surgery in July, said he would see his doctor in three weeks. Jackson seemed surprised at Bynum’s timeline.

“He’s been saying that,” Jackson told the Times. “I don’t know why he’s talking about December. He can get weight-bearing activities started at the end of this month. Can you play in two weeks (after that)? Can you play in three weeks? Four weeks puts you at the end of November. So let’s just let it happen and not talk about what the timing is.”

“The problem is that I’ve never been a player who complained or let people know how bad things were,” O’Neal said. “You get guys who are hurt and they try to play and it’s, ‘Oh, I didn’t play well because I was hurt.’ I wasn’t that player.

“I played almost two years with a torn meniscus. I tore my meniscus twice, and I never said anything because my team was going through so much and I felt like the city of Indianapolis needed any positive notion that they could get. I played through it. Nobody knows about me having to wear the big compression (clothes) just to walk around and me not being able to practice before I played in the games. People don’t know about that. Nobody knows about me taking 10 Advil a day and then having to get my liver and kidney checked. People don’t know about that.

“People always judge and they don’t know about anything that was going on on the inside. One thing I can say - and anybody can say from any team I’ve ever played on - is that when I get out there I’m going to play as hard as I possibly can, whether it’s on one leg or two legs or whatever. In the last three years of my deal, people were saying, ‘Oh, he’s not worth it.’ But I was still hurt.”